Excerpt from The Press of Atlantic City:

MULLICA TOWNSHIP – The school board race is likely to end in either less than a week or more than two months.

Superior Court Judge Valerie Armstrong has granted Thomas Carl and Mary Hunt’s joint request for a recount of the votes each got in the April 15 election, in which they tied for the third and final open seat.

The county board of elections will conduct the recount Monday morning in the Northfield building that holds the voting machines used in Mullica. It’s expected to take a half-hour at most.

The judge’s order makes the result of that recount binding, so should the vote totals change at all, the winner would join the board at its May 12 meeting.

Should the tie remain, a special election would be held, probably in mid- to late July, officials said.

The May 12 board meeting also could see the election of a board president. The board postponed that decision at its last meeting, six days after the election, although it did elect Spiros Malaspina vice president. Hunt was the president last year.

Richard Hahn finished one vote behind Carl’s and Hunt’s 233, but because he didn’t petition for a recount, votes for him won’t be recounted. He has no regrets – “Let the election stand where it is” – and he’s adamant that the cost of a special election be avoided in any case.

“To put an $8,500 burden on the taxpayer seems to be not right,” said Hahn, who was an incumbent. “It’s a nonpaid position that you’re elected for, that you volunteer for. … I just think that there needs to be some type of mediation for this, rather than a runoff. It’s just raising taxes.”

Carl led Hahn by two and Hunt by three votes before absentee ballots were counted. Those ballots seemed to put Hunt ahead of both men by one, until it was found that Carl’s total had been incorrectly typed on a results sheet.

Hunt offered to let a coin flip decide who would join the board, but Carl declined.

The candidates are splitting the $105 cost of the petition and the recount.

“I think it’s better for the voters of Mullica” to have both candidates seek the recount, Carl said. Hunt could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Carl’s attorney is Allen Littlefield of Hammonton; Hahn’s is Linwood-based Rob Herman.

Foggy statutes have confounded those involved since the election. Officials have variously cited rules mandating a tied election be recounted and mandating a recount be requested within 15 days of the election. It is unclear what would have happened had no one sought a recount of this election within 15 days.

To e-mail Eric Scott Campbell at The Press:

ECampbell@pressofac.com